Valley Gardening: Hemp, hemp hooray

Life is good in the neighborhood! You all know how much I love Peyton Sanchez. He’s my absolute hero!There would be world peace if everyone was just a little bit like him.

Meanwhile…Peyton continues to fight! He is going a little bit slower nowadays and usually needs his walker or his wheelchair or sometimes just an elbow to hang on to. He gets to take a nap every day so we can all be a little bit jealous about that. He helped feed 6-day old puppies at the Spot yesterday, and his touch was so gentle, so caring! Did I already tell you that the Sanchez family received a rescue Cocker Spaniel a few months ago? They named him Copper. He’s one lucky dog to have Peyton to lie by.

Do you want to hear something great? The Alamosa Domino’s Pizza is going to donate all the profits from sales on this coming Thursday to the Sanchez family! I am in awe. I cannot think of another chain type business that has done so much to help a couple of young men in our community—earlier this summer they did a similar fundraiser for Jaiden Rogers.

I am going to warn you right now to be patient on Thursday. The lines will be long because the support and love for this family is so great. Pizza is always good, warmed up later or for breakfast the next morning, so just be patient, be happy, be thankful Did I mention be patient?

I attended the SLV Hemp Symposium yesterday at Adams State University. What a wonderful turnout.Thank you Dr. Beverlee McClure and ASU for taking the lead in this endeavor. What it could mean to the Valley is so huge, so exciting. We need every county in the Valley to get together to figure out the manufacturing part of this wonderful plant. We can make it happen if we join forces and get after it.

I reached out to a nephew in Santa Cruz, California a couple of weeks ago because he is venturing into a multi-million dollar hemp/cannabis operation out there. It was pretty awakening to have him tell me that the San Luis Valley (Colorado), is leading the charge in the hemp industry and that we are getting known for it. How did he know that and I didn’t? Time to pay closer attention, I guess, and the symposium was certainly a good start.

There are still many, many facets of hemp growing, processing, and marketing to still figure out but the SLV and ASU are leading the way! Did you know that hemp has 25,000 potential uses, ranging from salves and lotions, to car parts, to hempcrete tiny houses, to oil, to food and clothing and bedding, and paper? The list goes on and on and on.

I am going to try and fix an area in the Green Spot just for hemp products, and also for information so that folks can get educated on the potential. I want articles to explain that hemp is NOT cannabis/marijuana! Please come in and have a cup of coffee and get educated.

I was dismayed, but not surprised, that the marijuana issues on the Alamosa and Monte Vista ballots failed on Tuesday. I am going to put together every article (from reputable sources) that I can find, that will go into cannabis education. Maybe if folks had had their questions answered, they would have voted yes and not been afraid of what would happen in our town. Base your opinion on truth and not hearsay and misinformation/propaganda.

I have to admit that I don’t like the ‘stoner’ image that some folks show when they are heavy smokers.And maybe they don’t work—I don’t know. Maybe they are a leach on society in general. I do HATE the stumbling drunks who walk by my business every day. Often we call the police to pick up these individuals so they don’t get hurt. I have never had to do that for someone “high” on pot.

One of our newly elected officials is glad the marijuana issues didn’t pass, because now he can recruit new businesses into our “clean” city. Does that mean he wouldn’t have recruited if our city had “turned dirty”? He says that he knows businesses in Alamosa are happy---he never talked to me—oh, well, what else is new?